What can the great renaissance artist tell us about management?
Two important things:
1. Know what your employees are good at and are passionate about doing.
2. Allow them to play to these attributes for the greatest workplace impact.
Michelangelo sculpted many amazing works. But his best (my opinion) are the four statues called The Slaves – four torsos in the process of being released from stone. These represent what Michelangelo felt was his role as sculptor: the sculptor doesn’t create – rather, he learns about the stone and then releases what is in the stone. His message: managers are like sculptors. Their role is to learn their employees’ best performance attributes and help them to release them into the workplace.
We each have unique talents, passions and strengths. These prepare us well for some roles, and not for others; not every employee is good at every role. And though employees should know their strengths, many do not. This requires the manager to assist in helping employees learn their best abilities to determine their best fit – those roles and responsibilities that allow their best to happen at work.
When we play to what is in us, we impact the workplace with significance. We do our best work. We are passionate, capable and provide our greatest impact.
Our role as managers is to help release the best from each employee. Consider these ways to help your employees learn how to release their best in the workplace:
1. Identify the critical talents, skills and experience needed in each role; this allows you to know what you need in each role.
2. Have employees define what they are good at, either through communication with others, self-inspection or a talent assessment tool.
3. Have employees define what they are passionate about in the workplace.
4. With this information, realign employees to roles that need what they are good at and are passionate about doing.
This allows employees to play to their strengths – we allow employees to release their best to the workplace. And when they deliver their best, they earn the title, “talented” – something you can imagine Michelangelo repeatedly heard.
Please pass this to someone who can benefit from this information, or contact me to help you learn how to release your employees’ talents in the workplace.
bring your best, find your fit, michelangelo, release from the stone, talents
This entry was posted on Monday, April 26th, 2010 at 2:30 pm and is filed under For Managers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
